Thalasquall

An Adventure of Ideals and High Hopes

Charter of Thalasquall Overview

One of my players asked how exactly their contributions to the development of Thalasquall looked on paper when trading in stock metal that his smithing PC had brought into the wilderness with him. What I had initially intended as an abstracted roleplay and skill check transaction system now needed a firmer foundation and a clearer work/reward system. And it just wasn’t a document that had to cover the player characters but was the drive and impetus for all the people of Thalasquall. Already established is that Thalasquall has no economy – there is no trade, no wandering travellers, no caravans, no contact with any other civilization for hundreds of miles. Also already established is a dearth of supplies, raw materials, and food leaving what was brought with the settlers in and on their wagons.

The people of Thalasquall are legally equal with no one person over the others as far as matters of civil or property rights are concerned; however, property ownership and representative rights are highly stratified and disproportionate. The backers of Thalasquall hold all the wealth of Thalasquall which is one out of every six people. The other five people have pledged three years of productive work to get a piece of that wealth. Unfortunately, all the wealth of Thalasquall is potential for there is little to nothing of value until Thalasquall enters into trade with other settlements, city-states, and nations.

“Wait,” you may say, “how can one group have all the wealth and the other group earn wealth if nothing has value until a later date?” My response is how start-up companies are able to pay for pricy professional laborers, entice monied individuals to invest, and purchase expensive equipment/facilities – shares. The people who poured their wealth into buying the start-up resources, finding freemen laborers, sponsoring the surveys, and securing the legal permissions were issued shares commensurate to their investment. The top twelve shareholders were city masters who have permanent places in the governing ring of masters. Another forty eight are land owners of the surrounding fertile plain north of the river. Nobody else started with shares, which is the incentive to work.

The masters and land owners have shares, materials, and stakes of land they own by the charter of the town but that is all it is. The unshared have labor and skill but no right to claim anything within Thalasquall by that same charter. The fulcrum is the shares as the shares can be doled out for services performed, offered as rewards for extraordinary service, and traded between individuals for product. What’s more, the shares may be traded for land property and city services. When trade is established the shares generate profit as they are cashed out and the economy is normalized.